Welcome to Sociology Subject Guide

The purpose of this guide is to help you with your study and research, particularly for assignments, in the field of Sociology by putting together all the resources (such as books, journals, databases, referencing guide) that you will need.

Recently-arrived books

Post-1994, South Africa's traditional leaders have fought for recognition, and positioned themselves as major players in the South African political landscape. Yet their role in a democracy is contested, with leaders often accused of abusing power, disregarding human rights, expropriating resources and promoting tribalism. Some argue that democracy and traditional leadership are irredeemably opposed and cannot co-exist. Meanwhile, shifts in the political economy of the former bantustans − the introduction of platinum mining in particular − have attracted new interests and conflicts to these areas, with chiefs often designated as custodians of community interests.

"After the introduction of the fast track land reform programme in 2000, Zimbabwe has undergone major economic and political shifts and these have had a profound impact on both urban and rural livelihoods. This book provides rich empirical studies that examine a range of multi-faceted and contested livelihoods within the context of systemic crises. Taking a broad political economy approach, the chapters advance a grounded and in-depth understanding of emerging and shifting livelihood processes, strategies and resilience that foregrounds agency at household level. Highlighting an emergent scholarship amongst young black scholars in Zimbabwe, and providing an understanding of how people and communities respond to socio-economic challenges, this book is an important read for scholars of African political economy, Southern African Studies and livelihoods."

Michel Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge was published in March 1969; Discipline and Punish in February 1975. Although only six years apart, the difference in tone is stark: the former is a methodological treatise, the latter a call to arms. What accounts for the radical shift in Foucault's approach? Foucault's time in Tunisia had been a political awakening for him, and he returned to a France much changed by the turmoil of 1968. He taught at the experimental University of Vincennes and then moved to a prestigious position at the College de France. He quickly became involved in activist work concerning prisons and health issues such as abortion rights, and in his seminars he built research teams to conduct collaborative work, often around issues related to his lectures and activism.

Basing his study in Jamaica, Vincent Brown investigates what people thought about death in the world of Atlantic slavery. In his story of a world in flux he shows that death was as generative as it was destructive, and that the Grim Reaper became entwined in the social fabric of the island at the centre of the slave trade.